1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns a personal care cleansing article in packaged form and process for manufacture, the article particularly being a toilette bar integrated with a non-woven fibrous web.
2. The Related Art
Toilette bars are amongst the oldest forms of personal cleansing articles. Research continues to provide improved bar technology. Many problems exist requiring further solutions. Bars are slippery when wet. Better grabability is needed. Some bars require a long time to generate sufficiently luxurious lather. Quicker foaming bars are necessary. Other types of bars form mush from placement in a wet dish awaiting further use. Mush is aesthetically displeasing both visually and by handling.
Some of the aforementioned problems have sought to be overcome through the use of water-insoluble structural composites combined with soap. A first variety encompasses surrounding a soap bar with a textile or fibrous sheath. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,190,550 (Campbell) describes a seamless envelope of crimped, resilient, stretchy synthetic organic fibers surrounding a core of solid soap or other suitable surfactant material. The envelope is held in integral form solely by the entanglement of the fibers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,969,225 (Schubert) discloses a scrub brush. This article is formed from an elastic, resilient, synthetic fibrous bat or open-cell chemical foam (preferably polyurethane) having an internal cavity or tunnel containing a bar of soap.
EP 1 266 599 A1 (Duden et al.) reports a solid cleanser holder. The holder is formed of a textured film having texture variations with at least one aperture, the film surrounding a solid cleanser.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 2004/0033915 A1 (Aleles et al.) reports a cleansing bar which includes a cleansing composition and a plurality of discrete elements, particularly fibers. These discrete elements appear not to be formed into any extended bonded web.
Another body of technical art focuses upon structuring cores surrounded by soap. Apparently in this grouping, the core serves as a scaffold to support the cleansing composition. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,221,506 (Dulin) discloses bar soaps for personal use having a structural center. Illustrative centers include open-celled sponges and woven or non-woven organic filamentary materials. In a FIG. 2 embodiment, a small portion of the structural core protrudes through the surface for reasons of providing a hanger support (e.g. a hole).
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 2003/0220212 A1 (DeVitis) describes a reinforced bar soap. The reinforcement member Is provided to prolong usage of a conventional soap composition and to serve as structural reinforcement eliminating soap breakage problems.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,190,079 B1 (Ruff) discloses a scrubbing soap bar composed of vegetable oil/glycerine imbedded with a length of a thin, fine mesh netting. A portion of the netting extends exteriorly of the soap to form a pocket intended for insertion of a human user's fingers to facilitate grasp of the bar.
Although there have been significant advances through the combination of soap compositions with reinforcement and/or textile webs, more discoveries are necessary to improve rate of lather volume generation, minimization of mush and/or degradation of the web structure itself.
Besides necessity for improving functionality, there has been scant disclosure with respect to production methods for composite toilette bars. Invariably, any disclosure regarding production involves necessarily use of a production mold from which the resultant composite bar must be ejected prior to packaging. Production improvements are necessary before these composite toilette bars can become available at affordable prices.